Imagine you’re having a casual dinner with friends — a beach picnic, a backyard barbecue, a formal meal during an international trade summit — and suddenly one of your companions starts talking about an embarrassing personal condition starting with the letter ‘H’. I’m talking, of course, about halitosis. “Yep,” they say, “I thought I just [...]

  Before I get started on this essay, I need to pause for a moment and surrender my special laminated ‘Manly Guy’ ID card and secret decoder ring. It’s a shame about the card. The front has my name, age, height and weight listed accurately to within forty-three percent. The back lists handy guy phrases [...]

  I have remote control children. This hope-giving fact came to light before my oldest reached his first birthday. Ten months of near-constant parenting had left me with the energy of a week-old corpse, only not as pretty and definitely more putrid. I was lying on the couch — held down by unusually thick strands [...]

  When the phone rings it’s like an alert that you’re about to receive an unexpected gift. You drop whatever you’re doing — cleaning house, watching television, rescuing a cat from a tree — and run to grab the phone. Too often, instead of a present you get a booby prize and find yourself talking [...]